Experts predict emergence of La Nina wet spell this year
Friday, May 25, 2007
LA NINA, a weather phenomenon characterised by incessant rainfall, storms and flooding in most parts of Asia, may be emerging again this year, and farmers may have to brace themselves for a "wet" dry season.
La Nina, or "little girl" in Spanish, is a cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Rains induced by this weather anomaly may lash oil palm, rubber, coffee and cocoa plantations as well as inundate rice fields and open pit mining areas.
"The Pacific Basin remains primed for La Nina," the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said on its website (www.bom.gov.au).
Farmers have reported unseasonal rains in rubber, cocoa and coffee plantations in Southeast Asia, which have curbed supply and helped support global prices as well as encouraged main rubber consumer China to stock up.
"It's already May, but still there's so much rain. I think the world is getting strange," said a rubber dealer in Jakarta.
"It's getting tougher to find raw material," said the dealer, referring to difficulties in extracting latex from rubber trees because of erratic weather.
Parts of Indonesia normally enter the dry season in April and May, but rain is still falling in rubber, coffee and cocoa plantations.
In Thailand, the world's main rubber producer, unseasonal rains disrupted supply and helped spur gains in Tokyo futures.
But in the sub-continent, India awaits the start of the monsoon season, when gold demand in the world's main consumer normally drops as farmers invest their money in fertilisers to grow crops. Farmers account for 65 per cent of India's demand.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said cooler-than-normal conditions in the Pacific Ocean subsurface, which have persisted since mid-January and led to cooler-than-average surface waters in the far-eastern Pacific, suggested that La Nina was developing.
"These conditions, combined with the fact that all major international coupled models show further cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean over the coming months, suggest there is an elevated chance of a La Nina event occurring during 2007."
In late 2005 through early 2006, the Philippines, the world's largest coconut oil producer and exporter, was hit by the weather phenomenon and experienced above-average rainfall.Reuters
La Nina, or "little girl" in Spanish, is a cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Rains induced by this weather anomaly may lash oil palm, rubber, coffee and cocoa plantations as well as inundate rice fields and open pit mining areas.
"The Pacific Basin remains primed for La Nina," the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said on its website (www.bom.gov.au).
Farmers have reported unseasonal rains in rubber, cocoa and coffee plantations in Southeast Asia, which have curbed supply and helped support global prices as well as encouraged main rubber consumer China to stock up.
"It's already May, but still there's so much rain. I think the world is getting strange," said a rubber dealer in Jakarta.
"It's getting tougher to find raw material," said the dealer, referring to difficulties in extracting latex from rubber trees because of erratic weather.
Parts of Indonesia normally enter the dry season in April and May, but rain is still falling in rubber, coffee and cocoa plantations.
In Thailand, the world's main rubber producer, unseasonal rains disrupted supply and helped spur gains in Tokyo futures.
But in the sub-continent, India awaits the start of the monsoon season, when gold demand in the world's main consumer normally drops as farmers invest their money in fertilisers to grow crops. Farmers account for 65 per cent of India's demand.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said cooler-than-normal conditions in the Pacific Ocean subsurface, which have persisted since mid-January and led to cooler-than-average surface waters in the far-eastern Pacific, suggested that La Nina was developing.
"These conditions, combined with the fact that all major international coupled models show further cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean over the coming months, suggest there is an elevated chance of a La Nina event occurring during 2007."
In late 2005 through early 2006, the Philippines, the world's largest coconut oil producer and exporter, was hit by the weather phenomenon and experienced above-average rainfall.Reuters
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